Weather.com Adds Interactive Radar Maps Powered by Microsoft

In a nice pickup for Microsoft, Weather.com has made the switch to Virtual Earth powered maps which feature interactive radar maps powered by Microsoft.

More on the Interactive Radar Maps from Weather.com:

These one of a kind, industry-leading maps that you are viewing show weather information from The Weather Channel in conjunction with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Platform, which provides aerial photos, Bird’s Eye images, and 3D models for major cities throughout the country.

You may view weather imagery on either of two types of maps. The Road view appears by default. To see the same geography from a photographic perspective, select the Aerial button in the top-left corner of the map. Aerial photos may be up to several years old and not available for the closest zoom levels in some areas.

The Radar layer shows precipitation over the United States and surrounding areas only and is updated approximately every 5 minutes.

The infrared Satellite layer indicates cloud cover over most of the world and is updated approximately every 3 hours. You may notice the seams of adjoining images, which are sourced by different satellites above the earth.

The composite Satellite & Radar layer displays precipitation and cloud cover over the contiguous United States and nearby areas only and is updated approximately every 30 minutes.

Slide the Transparency slider bar to your desired setting to modify the visibility of a weather layer. A setting of 100% fully hides weather imagery. Sliding to 0% enables weather imagery to block view of the underlying basemap.

Use the Animation control buttons to view recent movement of radar and satellite data. In the middle of the animation control panel, use the play and stop buttons to start and end animations. To examine individual images within the sequence, buttons are also available to skip to the oldest and most recent images and to cycle through every image, moving forward and backward in time.

Animation sequences cover approximately the past hour for radar, the past day for satellite, and the last six hours for the Satellite & Radar combination. In addition to having access to a larger interactive map, weather.com Gold subscribers can view radar in motion for approximately the past two hours.